np: BW OU Suspect Testing Round 8 - Mr. Roboto (SEE POST #240)

I suppose the reason I want Genesect to stay OU so badly is that it's basically the best possible weapon non-weather could be given to fight weather teams. Rock Polish can wreck most rain teams if you use Giga Drain over Thunderbolt. Tyranitar is severely hurt by +1 U-Turn or +1 Bug Buzz and Hippowdon is killed by +1 Ice Beam. Ninetales makes it out ok, but Venusaur is killed by Rock Polish +1 Ice Beam. I guess I'm resigned to the fact that people think it's broken, but I really do think (and the suspect ladder is a testament to this) that with Genesect gone, we will be even more overrun by weather teams. But at least they say that something rain related will be suspect next. I just really, really want Drizzle/Drought banned from competitive play, but neither is really broken, just boring. Oh well, there's nothing I can do about it.

So yeah, don't ban Genesect. I already don't think it's broken, because, as someone who uses it on almost every team, it's stopped a lot more frequently than people are claiming. Unless you play perfectly, you aren't always going to have that +1 SpA boost when your in the perfect spot to Rock Polish, making your sweep nearly impossible unless your opponent's team is incredibly weakened. Not to mention how hazards really hurt Genesect in a metagame filled with spikes (looking at you, Deoxys-D). Hazards make it much easier for things to revenge it, and much harder for the Rock Polish set to actually set up. And the Scarf set is easy to take care of with literally ANYTHING with Protect and/or good prediction skills.

HOWEVER (and that's a big however) Genesect is over-centralizing the metagame, and that is definitely a reason to ban it.

So as much as I don't want to ban Genesect (I really do love the little guy), I am sure it will be and I would probably support that decision. Don't let broken things balance broken things. Even though I think not having Genesect will make the metagame worse, it will pave the way for us to ban things that really make the metagame bad (LOOKING AT YOU WEATHER).

I've been playing a lot in the OU current ladder and I've gotta say Genesect isn't as deadly as people make him out to be. RP is definitely its deadliest set, and yes it can sweep unprepared teams, but if your team is not prepared for the #1 sweeper in the current metagame whose fault is that?

Granted, the team I'm using DOES have at least 2 counters to RP Gene but that is not the issue. Genesect is unpredictable but he IS manageable. Scarf sets are so over used that they are easy to be played around. Band sets will initially surprise you but once the cats out of the bag it becomes easier to play against, especially if you're using offense or something that outspeeds Gene (which almost every team carries). Expert Belt is in the same boat. It may get a surprise kill but once you know its holding EB, you will most likely be able to outspeed and KO it with one of your own Pokemon.

What I will say about Genesect is that it DOES centralize the metagame. Obviously every team should have a Genesect counter, but what if one counter is not enough? Heatran may be a hard stop to any Genesect but Dugtrio (a common partner for Genesect) takes Heatran out easily. What do you do now? I oftentimes find myself team-building with AT LEAST 2 counters to Genesect in mind, and I'm sure others do too.

In essence, Genesect should not be banned because of its unpredictability or because its "too powerful", if there's any reason for banning it is because it centralizes team-building and the metagame. Not too long ago for the Kyu-B suspect test Genesect had over 50% usage. That is unheard of, and if that doesn''t reflect Genesect overcentralizing the metagame then idk what does. I probably won't be able to vote for this suspect test seeing as I've only gotten reqs for OU current but those are just some of my thoughts.

People keep bringing up dugtrio when they talk about genesect or even tornadus. I know a lot of people think "dugtrio is not broken, 80 base attack! LOL" But maybe we should look into how it affects the metagame under the support clause. Ask yourself this, would genesect be more manageable if dugtrio can't remove its counters? I'd say yes, heatran wouldn't have to run fucking she shell of all things. I think genesect is broken regardless of counters or power, but more so because of the whole overcentralization factor. I honestly don't think people would use it much, if its counters weren't so vulnerable. So the only aspect the makes it broken would most likely dissipate.

I honestly don't think the Genesect, Dugtrio combo is that commonly used, and I think it wasn't really high on the usage statistics either. Yeah Dugtrio has a cool gimmick that also synergies well with Genesect, but it's not what makes Gene such a prominent threat. It's just one of countless combinations he can utilize.

I honestly don't think the Genesect, Dugtrio combo is that commonly used, and I think it wasn't really high on the usage statistics either. Yeah Dugtrio has a cool gimmick that also synergies well with Genesect, but it's not what makes Gene such a prominent threat. It's just one of countless combinations he can utilize.

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You may be right, however at one point soon after Lavos Spawn released his GeneTrio Sun team, I had never seen so much of the same team in my entire life on Smogon. Every Sun and even Rain teams had a Genesect Dugtrio core, and it was really starting to piss me off how unoriginal teams were. However, now I thankfully rarely see any, and when I do I'm well prepared for it. GeneTrio is a powerful combination, however it's so well known that many can handle it better then before.

People keep bringing up dugtrio when they talk about genesect or even tornadus. I know a lot of people think "dugtrio is not broken, 80 base attack! LOL" But maybe we should look into how it affects the metagame under the support clause. Ask yourself this, would genesect be more manageable if dugtrio can't remove its counters? I'd say yes, heatran wouldn't have to run fucking she shell of all things. I think genesect is broken regardless of counters or power, but more so because of the whole overcentralization factor. I honestly don't think people would use it much, if its counters weren't so vulnerable. So the only aspect the makes it broken would most likely dissipate.

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Would it be MORE manageable? Yes of course, however Dugtrio shouldn't be blamed for Genesect being the supreme sweeper he is. People seem to only affiliate Dugtrio with Genesect, however he's great for helping out other Mons with similar late game cleaning or sweeping roles such as Scizor, and Volcarona, and Salamence. Unlike Magnezone, Dugtrio can trap Fire and Steel types safely, allowing for Salamence or Scizor to spam their STAB moves without their weaknesses or Steel types to wall them. Moving on to my point, Dugtrio should not be banned because of his unique ability. Even with Dugtrio, Genesect is still used 50% of the time, and RP Genesect doesn't seem to have a problem ripping through teams. Dugtrio isn't needed at all in order to take care of Volcarona and Heatran, it's just the easiest way to do it. For Volcarona, all you need is Stealth Rocks or a Rock type/Water move. Heatran is easily taken down by EQ which is a very common move, or a Fighting or a Water move. Genesect is not further broken by Dugtrio, however he is considered broken due to himself alone over centralizing the metagame. At least, that's the most reasonably reason as to why he should even be considered broken. Versatility is one thing, but being on almost every team is another.

I don't think predicting genesect's sets is as hard as people saying it is. All you have to worry about is whether the genesect has Rock Polish, Choice Scarf, or Life Orb/Expert Belt, since those are the most common sets. The Choice Scarf set will most likely be leading or being sent out when on of their pokemon dies, otherwise it will most likely be the other sets and each can be taken care of once the set is figure out. Sure people can bluff a set and it can end up screwing you over, but this is true for many pokemon bluffing a certain set.

Also, people say that genesect resists all priorities. That's not quite true. He's neutral to mach punch and even though they won't KO it can still do quite a lot. I haven't done the calcs but I wonder how much a Choice Banded or Fighting Gem boosted Mach punch from a Technician Breloom would do to a Genesect.

An Alakazam carrying a focus sash with hidden power fire can revenge kill any set except for the U-turn ones. Just to point out another possible counter.

It'll take some residual damage or managing to sneak in a swords dance if you wanna waste a Genesect, as you'll get one shotted in return with flamethrower (or they'll just U-Turn out into something). Not saying Breloom is bad for this, since if you have your own rocks and can wear Genesect down some this will prevent it from sweeping you, but it's hard to do without taking a good amount of damage yourself.

Also, FS Alakazam is a really shaky counter because you can't switch in: if they're scarf they outspeed you, if they're RP they've either got the RP on the switch or can run away to something that mauls Alakazam. Also if you switch into any of its attacks you're boned, unless it's an EB set that hasn't rock polished yet, but that's still way too risky.

Genesect may /centrilize/ the metagame, in the sense that it as an extremely large impact, but even that is not fully true and is not any grounds for banning.

Yes, genesect received 50% usage at some point. However, this was on a suspect ladder; you know, the ones where people use 5 minute HO teams to quickly make reqs, thus accounting for the spike. At one point in DW, Chandy has 54%, yet is not recognized to be as broken as perceived as it has a few hard counters. Genesect has even more. It loses to most fire types as well as almost any special wall. Furthermore, usage doesn't mean it'sbroken, it means it is easy to use. It is a low risk high reward pokemon, but that reward is serving as a great sweeper or a fantastic pivot/revenge killer. It is great in multiple roles, but not at the same time, and none are exactly new. Terrakion, Volc, Dragonite, Mence, Keldeo, etc are all sufficient sweepers; keldeo under rain rarely even needs a boost and volc can beat heatran (only real counter) w/o toxic or roar by boosting to +6 and bug buzzing, not to mention using rest. There are also lovely pivots, both offensive and defensive, as well.

Genesect is a dantastic poke and deserves #1 for its ease of use, but that doesn't make it broken.

Just pointing out with the Dugtrio issue, Terrakion or Breloom can slide into just about any slot that Dugtrio would've occupied. They're all heavy compliments to special attackers and form a dynamic duo with gene. Personally I'd say they're interchangable so you can't just blame one of them, if anything there's much stronger cases Terrakion or Breloom would need to be banned / nerfed.

Also as a rule of thumb use Dugtrio to compliment special attacking teams and Magnezone if you wanted to compliment a physical attacking unit. That's just what works in BW- Magnezone isn't doing anything about Blissey / Heatran and Dugtrio isn't doing anything about physical wall steels.

For Genesect itself I have no doubt it'll be banned and while I'm sure the "it's fucking gay as shit" factor will play into it you have to remember that Heatran / blobs is a pathetic list of reliable counters. Both are very easy to beat down with hazards in BW2 (especially with this Shed Shell spike on Tran), have the compliments of Breloom / Rak / Dug to try to deal with which could make them a liability, and all check what they do in very exclusive ways. Of course any mon can take a compliment well but when you have a pokemon that takes it and sweeps on another level and provides an extra Steel for your team (don't forget how huge that is) you begin to separate it from other top threats without even looking at a usage chart.

Genesect may /centrilize/ the metagame, in the sense that it as an extremely large impact, but even that is not fully true and is not any grounds for banning.

Yes, genesect received 50% usage at some point. However, this was on a suspect ladder; you know, the ones where people use 5 minute HO teams to quickly make reqs, thus accounting for the spike. At one point in DW, Chandy has 54%, yet is not recognized to be as broken as perceived as it has a few hard counters. Genesect has even more. It loses to most fire types as well as almost any special wall. Furthermore, usage doesn't mean it'sbroken, it means it is easy to use. It is a low risk high reward pokemon, but that reward is serving as a great sweeper or a fantastic pivot/revenge killer. It is great in multiple roles, but not at the same time, and none are exactly new. Terrakion, Volc, Dragonite, Mence, Keldeo, etc are all sufficient sweepers; keldeo under rain rarely even needs a boost and volc can beat heatran (only real counter) w/o toxic or roar by boosting to +6 and bug buzzing, not to mention using rest. There are also lovely pivots, both offensive and defensive, as well.

Genesect is a dantastic poke and deserves #1 for its ease of use, but that doesn't make it broken.

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"Centrilize" isn't a word either. Don't correct others if you can't even spell the word you're trying to correct.

You can't just dismiss Genesect having above 50% usage by saying people were just trying to get requirements. Regardless of the ladder, people are going to use whatever teams they think will make them win. Another argument for Genesect having such a high usage is that the suspect ladder generally consists of the more knowledgeable side of the playerbase.

I always thought it was odd that I saw Genesect in way more than 20% of my matches, so, out of curiosity today, I decided to watch matches of players who were pretty low on the ladder, and I was very surprised at how random most of their teams were. Of the 20 matches I watched, only 4 of the 40 teams had used Genesect. Of course, 20 matches is no where near enough to derive any significant meaning from, but I found it interesting nonetheless. My point is that all of these random players who don't play competitively or understand the metagame affect usage statistics and that Genesect's alarmingly high usage in the suspect ladder shouldn't be overlooked. When a pokemon is so good that there is literally no reason not to use it, that's pretty broken, regardless of whether or not it has a few reliable checks (of which Genesect has depressingly few)

Whoops, keep forgetting about that. Regardless, it still can't switch in on anything and hope to survive. You predict wrong and take an attack--worse, you take a U-Turn--and Zam is on death's door with nothing to show for it.

I agree that usage stats are nothing to go by, it just gives you the general idea of what's effective and what's not, and sometimes not even. Just look at Infernape's hilariously high usage. You can't tell me it's more effective than Tornadus-T, who has even less usage and is one of the biggest menaces in the current metagame.

When a pokemon is so good that there is literally no reason not to use it, that's pretty broken, regardless of whether or not it has a few reliable checks (of which Genesect has depressingly few)

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I think thats a bit of an exaggeration, I would argue that Genesect is maybe the closest Pokemon we have that we have "no reason not to use" but I don't think its necessarily true.

Also even if it were true I don't think that makes a Pokemon broken. When Bullet Punch Scizor came out in DPP I likely would have said you have no reason not to use it. But that doesn't make it broken, even if a Pokemon was used on 100% of teams I wouldn't call it broken on that basis, it simply means its popular. Before Aldaron's proposal many would say you had no reason not to use Ferrothorn, due to the high usage of Water types but that didn't make it broken.

Its late and I need to finish my peer reviews so I'm not sure I'm being clear. I guess my main point is that the "no reason not to use" argument, imo, shouldn't be used to determine, or argue, for a Pokemon's "brokenness", though really "broken" is subjective till we have a clear cut definition.

I don't think predicting genesect's sets is as hard as people saying it is. All you have to worry about is whether the genesect has Rock Polish, Choice Scarf, or Life Orb/Expert Belt, since those are the most common sets. The Choice Scarf set will most likely be leading or being sent out when on of their pokemon dies, otherwise it will most likely be the other sets and each can be taken care of once the set is figure out. Sure people can bluff a set and it can end up screwing you over, but this is true for many pokemon bluffing a certain set.

Also, people say that genesect resists all priorities. That's not quite true. He's neutral to mach punch and even though they won't KO it can still do quite a lot. I haven't done the calcs but I wonder how much a Choice Banded or Fighting Gem boosted Mach punch from a Technician Breloom would do to a Genesect.

An Alakazam carrying a focus sash with hidden power fire can revenge kill any set except for the U-turn ones. Just to point out another possible counter.

Didn't bother with Choice Band, as that's really uncommon anyway. Basically, every single calc (whether Life Orb or Fight Gem) results in a 2hko if at +0, and an ohko if at +2. Of course, if you already have a Swords Dance up, then there's really no need to 'check' Genesect, as you're already in sweeping mode and you can kill it anyway. So, if we assume that you're just using a +0 Breloom to check a Genesect sweep, then you can rely on it taking just over 50% HP. This is actually kind of bad though, seeing as Rock Polish sets often have Giga Drain, and if Genesect is relatively healthy, it's going to live that Mach Punch. I think the argument that you can't really check or counter Genesect via priority still stands given this; you can sweep past it with priority Mach Punch, sure, but you can't check it that way. Not really effectively, anyway.

I thought I might as well throw in the CB calcs while I was at it after all - they're more of the same though:

Adamant Choice Band gets to the point where you can sort of check Genesect, though it requires you to take off about a third of it's HP, so it's still a touch unreliable on the whole. I think that this all shows that Breloom can function as a sort of 'Emergency Check', but Genesect's decent bulk does mean that you will have to get some prior damage on it, before you can revenge it.

EDIT: Wooooow. I really should not have taken so long to post that. I started to reply, then left my computer for dinner, came back and posted, and now this feels random and out of place. Ah well. Deal with it ;)

I guess my main point is that the "no reason not to use" argument, imo, shouldn't be used to determine, or argue, for a Pokemon's "brokenness", though really "broken" is subjective till we have a clear cut definition.

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I agree. Having a criteria for voting a pokemon Uber would be helpful in discussing whether X pokemon should be moved out of the tier.

Youtuber

I just want to point out that the reason I believe Genesect + Dugtrio dropped in popularity isn't because Shed Shell Heatran took the metagame by storm or anything. I think people just realised how much of a bullshit strategy it is. Switch move + trap is, in my opinion, talentless trash that ruins the metagame. You can have a fantastic counter to a threat, i.e. SpDef Jirachi for Tornadus-T, but you can't actually switch it in to the mon it's supposed to be countering because it's just gonna get U-turned on and trapped.

Moderator

I just want to point out that the reason I believe Genesect + Dugtrio dropped in popularity isn't because Shed Shell Heatran took the metagame by storm or anything. I think people just realised how much of a bullshit strategy it is. Switch move + trap is, in my opinion, talentless trash that ruins the metagame. You can have a fantastic counter to a threat, i.e. SpDef Jirachi for Tornadus-T, but you can't actually switch it in to the mon it's supposed to be countering because it's just gonna get U-turned on and trapped.

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People don't stop using things because they're "bullshit stratagies" or not, people will always abuse things. I'd wager it fell out of favor since it isn't completely reliable and often times not the best use of a pokemon slot. All trappers that we can use right now are honestly kind of weak and only have trapping going for them. Against some teams they're simply dead weight, and that's not something you can afford to have in BW2.

It's hard to justify banning a Pokemon when handful of hard counters and plentiful of checks exist in the metagame. Blissey and Heatran are not the only ones that counters Genesect. Try Rotom-H, Ninetales, Tentacruel, Rotom-W, Kyurem-B, Jirachi in the rain, Volcarona, or Tyranitar (for RP). Lol that took me 5 seconds to come up. Now try and name this many counters to SD Terrakion.

What about checks? Let's see - any Pokemon that is faster than it! I just had a conversation with PK Gaming on irc, and he mentioned an interesting point - all the suspects that were banned had great Speed that lets them outrun most of the metagame, letting them not only wallbreak but sweep in a moment's notice. Genesect lacks that Speed factor, and it's really a major drawback that showed up through my laddering almost exclusively with Genesect.

"Pocket, nothing is faster than RP Genesect!" The same thing can be said for Agility Thundurus-T and Rock Polish Landorus. Yes, there's Ice Shard, but not all teams are packing Mamoswine are they? Are teams without Mamoswine doomed to be swept by these therians every time? Of course not. Reliable checks and counters exist for each of them, allowing teams to tank a hit and inflict a lethal blow to them. Genesect is in the same boat. I just listed a bunch of mons that dgaf about Genesect's doubling in Speed in my first paragraph - you don't need faster checks when slow checks and counters are numerous. Past Uber suspects have wallbreaking powers to even overwhelm their counters and must solely be dealt through revenge-kills. We don't even need to resort to that desperate measure with Genesect.

Plenty of checks and counters - and all because of these two points: the lack of power and Speed. People have equated that Download is similar to Sand Veil - the ability that broke the camel's back.

That's so far from the truth.

In fact, Download is what allows Genesect to carve its niche in OU with the rest of the top dogs, while without it, it would be joining the "barely OU" mons. This is because Download is the only viable way it can boost its relatively weak moves. Yes, 120 SpA means shit if the hardest move have a measly 90 BP. +1 Scarf Genesect is hitting just barely harder than Scarf Terrakion.

A 7% difference, and that's with DL boost. Its coverage moves that it uses for revenge-killing merely gets a STAB boost some of the time, whereas Terrakion can spam powerful STAB moves for its revenge-killing purposes. Genesect is simply an ordinary Scarfer, because it's weak even with DL boost, and a diverse movepool is irrelevant when you're locked into 1 move.

This brings me to the next point - Not all teams can afford Genesect. Yes not every team is made better by adding Genesect. I recently replaced Scarf Genesect for Scarf Landorus, because it was simply non-threatening other than spamming U-turn. Scarf Landorus not only pivots but checks more threats and can actually threaten a sweep. Hell I've swept many games with Scarf Mienshao's Reckless HJK more than I can count. Genesect just doesn't compare with powerful Scarfers that are already available in OU. Scarf Genesect is therefore nothing extraordinary compared to other Scarfers, probably less amazing. It's not like DL boost lets it kill Dragonite through MultiScale, so I don't see where the boost actually matters other than a stronger U-turn (so broken!)

So Scarf Genesect isn't all that great, and RP Genesect gets solidly checked or hard-walled by many mons. Where does broken come into picture? 50% usage statistics in a sad excuse of the ladder where half of the people spammed the same dumb GeneRain team for 70+ games a player? Or is it because of its "unpredictability," because you somehow could not figure out Genesect's set in the early phase of the match and get outplayed? Or because it's "overcentralizing" the way Scizor, Rotom-W, or any useful mon centralized the metagame in the past and present? Enlighten me.

I know this will sound quite stupid, but the fact that SD Terrakion has no counters actually makes it less of a hit in diversity, since you're not going to run counters explicitly to beat Terrakion anyways, you'll just run something that will outrun it and take it down, and that strategy happens to work against everything.

Now, if you happen to force yourself into running certain pokemon to counter a key threat, that threat is actually affecting the way you build your team and potentially limiting your choices on teambuilding. You addressed the problem yourself "nothing outruns RP Genesect", indeed, so you are forced to change your team to deal with it by introducing counters/hard checks.

The argument sounds counter-intuitive, but something that has no counters can easily have less impact in the metagame than something with just a few counters that are entirely needed to deal with the threat.

It's hard to justify banning a Pokemon when handful of hard counters and plentiful of checks exist in the metagame. Blissey and Heatran are not the only ones that counters Genesect. Try Rotom-H, Ninetales, Tentacruel, Rotom-W, Kyurem-B, Jirachi in the rain, Volcarona, or Tyranitar (for RP). Lol that took me 5 seconds to come up. Now try and name this many counters to SD Terrakion.

What about checks? Let's see - any Pokemon that is faster than it! I just had a conversation with PK Gaming on irc, and he mentioned an interesting point - all the suspects that were banned had great Speed that lets them outrun most of the metagame, letting them not only wallbreak but sweep in a moment's notice. Genesect lacks that Speed factor, and it's really a major drawback that showed up through my laddering almost exclusively with Genesect.

"Pocket, nothing is faster than RP Genesect!" The same thing can be said for Agility Thundurus-T and Rock Polish Landorus. Yes, there's Ice Shard, but not all teams are packing Mamoswine are they? Are teams without Mamoswine doomed to be swept by these therians every time? Of course not. Reliable checks and counters exist for each of them, allowing teams to tank a hit and inflict a lethal blow to them. Genesect is in the same boat. I just listed a bunch of mons that dgaf about Genesect's doubling in Speed in my first paragraph - you don't need faster checks when slow checks and counters are numerous. Past Uber suspects have wallbreaking powers to even overwhelm their counters and must solely be dealt through revenge-kills. We don't even need to resort to that desperate measure with Genesect.

Plenty of checks and counters - and all because of these two points: the lack of power and Speed. People have equated that Download is similar to Sand Veil - the ability that broke the camel's back.

That's so far from the truth.

In fact, Download is what allows Genesect to carve its niche in OU with the rest of the top dogs, while without it, it would be joining the "barely OU" mons. This is because Download is the only viable way it can boost its relatively weak moves. Yes, 120 SpA means shit if the hardest move have a measly 90 BP. +1 Scarf Genesect is hitting just barely harder than Scarf Terrakion.

A 7% difference, and that's with DL boost. Its coverage moves that it uses for revenge-killing merely gets a STAB boost some of the time, whereas Terrakion can spam powerful STAB moves for its revenge-killing purposes. Genesect is simply a ordinary Scarfer, because it's weak even with DL boost, and a diverse movepool is irrelevant when you're locked into 1 move.

This brings me to the next point - Not all teams can afford Genesect. Yes not every team is made better by adding Genesect. I recently replaced Scarf Genesect for Scarf Landorus, because it was simply non-threatening other than spamming U-turn. Scarf Landorus not only pivots but checks more threats and can actually threaten a sweep. Hell I've swept many games with Scarf Mienshao's Reckless HJK more than I can count. Genesect just doesn't compare with powerful Scarfers that are already available in OU. Scarf Genesect is therefore nothing extraordinary compared to other Scarfers, probably less amazing. It's not like DL boost lets it kill Dragonite through MultiScale, so I don't see where the boost actually matters other than a stronger U-turn (so broken!)

So Scarf Genesect isn't all that great, and RP Genesect gets solidly checked or hard-walled by many mons. Where does broken come into picture? 50% usage statistics in a sad excuse of the ladder where half of the people spammed the same dumb GeneRain team for 70+ games a player? Or is it because of its "unpredictability," because you somehow could not figure out Genesect's set in the early phase of the match and get outplayed? Or because it's "overcentralizing" the way Scizor, Rotom-W, or any useful mon centralized the metagame in the past and present? Enlighten me.

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I've been struggling figure out how to condense my thoughts on why I think Genesect should stay OU, but then I saw this.

Sure, they can stop its sweep (assuming it has the right move), but Genesect still fucks up its checks pretty hard. It's not hard for Genesect to get +1 anyway. Unless you don't run a single Pokemon with a higher Defense than Special Defense, which is probably because of Genesect anyway, in which case you are making the metagame more centralized around avoiding a Genesect sweep anyway.

EDIT: It just occured to me that I forgot to get the calcs for Flamethrower in the sun versus a few of those Pokemon.

It's hard to justify banning a Pokemon when handful of hard counters and plentiful of checks exist in the metagame. Blissey and Heatran are not the only ones that counters Genesect. Try Rotom-H, Ninetales, Tentacruel, Rotom-W, Kyurem-B, Jirachi in the rain, Volcarona, or Tyranitar (for RP). Lol that took me 5 seconds to come up. Now try and name this many counters to SD Terrakion.

What about checks? Let's see - any Pokemon that is faster than it! I just had a conversation with PK Gaming on irc, and he mentioned an interesting point - all the suspects that were banned had great Speed that lets them outrun most of the metagame, letting them not only wallbreak but sweep in a moment's notice. Genesect lacks that Speed factor, and it's really a major drawback that showed up through my laddering almost exclusively with Genesect.

"Pocket, nothing is faster than RP Genesect!" The same thing can be said for Agility Thundurus-T and Rock Polish Landorus. Yes, there's Ice Shard, but not all teams are packing Mamoswine are they? Are teams without Mamoswine doomed to be swept by these therians every time? Of course not. Reliable checks and counters exist for each of them, allowing teams to tank a hit and inflict a lethal blow to them. Genesect is in the same boat. I just listed a bunch of mons that dgaf about Genesect's doubling in Speed in my first paragraph - you don't need faster checks when slow checks and counters are numerous. Past Uber suspects have wallbreaking powers to even overwhelm their counters and must solely be dealt through revenge-kills. We don't even need to resort to that desperate measure with Genesect.

Plenty of checks and counters - and all because of these two points: the lack of power and Speed. People have equated that Download is similar to Sand Veil - the ability that broke the camel's back.

That's so far from the truth.

In fact, Download is what allows Genesect to carve its niche in OU with the rest of the top dogs, while without it, it would be joining the "barely OU" mons. This is because Download is the only viable way it can boost its relatively weak moves. Yes, 120 SpA means shit if the hardest move have a measly 90 BP. +1 Scarf Genesect is hitting just barely harder than Scarf Terrakion.

A 7% difference, and that's with DL boost. Its coverage moves that it uses for revenge-killing merely gets a STAB boost some of the time, whereas Terrakion can spam powerful STAB moves for its revenge-killing purposes. Genesect is simply an ordinary Scarfer, because it's weak even with DL boost, and a diverse movepool is irrelevant when you're locked into 1 move.

This brings me to the next point - Not all teams can afford Genesect. Yes not every team is made better by adding Genesect. I recently replaced Scarf Genesect for Scarf Landorus, because it was simply non-threatening other than spamming U-turn. Scarf Landorus not only pivots but checks more threats and can actually threaten a sweep. Hell I've swept many games with Scarf Mienshao's Reckless HJK more than I can count. Genesect just doesn't compare with powerful Scarfers that are already available in OU. Scarf Genesect is therefore nothing extraordinary compared to other Scarfers, probably less amazing. It's not like DL boost lets it kill Dragonite through MultiScale, so I don't see where the boost actually matters other than a stronger U-turn (so broken!)

So Scarf Genesect isn't all that great, and RP Genesect gets solidly checked or hard-walled by many mons. Where does broken come into picture? 50% usage statistics in a sad excuse of the ladder where half of the people spammed the same dumb GeneRain team for 70+ games a player? Or is it because of its "unpredictability," because you somehow could not figure out Genesect's set in the early phase of the match and get outplayed? Or because it's "overcentralizing" the way Scizor, Rotom-W, or any useful mon centralized the metagame in the past and present? Enlighten me.

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Holy Mother of God, this is perfect. Pocket has basically said what all the "pro-OU" people have been trying to say for weeks now, but just haven't found the right way to say it. Genesect is NOT BROKEN. A lot of the people against keeping him OU say that his various sets can take out all of his counters with the appropriate coverage move. But Genesect donesn't have all of the appropriate coverage moves! He can only have three, at the most four (and if he has four, chances are he's Banded/Specs, which you should be bale to handle easily if you are a good battler)! Not only that but if you don't have Heatran, Blissey, Rotom-H, Rotom-W, Tyranitar, Ninetales, Tentacruel, Kyruem-B, Volcarona, Magnezone (YEAH, HE'S A COUNTER TO SCARF), or RainRachi on your team, chances are you will probably have another Pokémon who can come in on whatever coverage move Genesect uses and KO because 99 speed is just NOT FAST ENOUGH. Remember when Thundurus-T came out? Everyone was saying how horrible his speed tier was and how he would't be strong enough because he was too easily outsped? Yeah, he was! And you know who else is easily outsped? Genesect! Wanna know how to beat Genesect? Hazards. Set up hazards and Genesect will fall easily. The amount of switching that most Genesect do will wear him down quickly. The Scarf set isn't the only one switching in and out a lot either. The Ebelt set also switches because it's bluffing the Scarf. As for the Rock Polish set, I run a Rock polish Genesect on the team I'm currently putting on display in my RMT (hint hint...click the link), and the Giga Drain set is simply hard-walled by any Fire type. That's all there is to it. If it has Tbolt over Giga Drain, then Rotom-W, Gastrodon (and to a lesser extent, Quagsire) all hard-wall it. Sun teams also give RP Genesect a hard time. If you see a Genesect on your opponent's team and you're running sun, the way to counter it is to GET YOUR GODDAMN VENUSAUR OUT BEFORE THEY USE THEIR RP GENESECT. I use one! I know! You get Venusaur out before Genesect, there's nothing he can do about it. And what about Breloom! Adamant Fight Gem Mach Punch does a hefty amount to Genesect, so if you have hazards up and Breloom, Genesect is going down. Or, if you get a swords dance up before Genesect comes in, then you can straight up KO it right there with the Life Orb set. Even if you don't if the Genesect is using the LO set, then just let it whittle it's health down before you send in Breloom, and THEN KO it. The point is, if your team doesn't have any of those things in it, I'm sorry, but you're just not prepared for most of OU! If Genesect is the most common threat out there, why don't you have one of those things on your team? That's a pretty long list of things you can add to your team, one of which is just "fire type!" That's a pretty simple thing, isn't it? I just think that Genesect is way easier to counter than people are making it seem.

EDIT: Also, Ditto absolutely stops Rock polish Genesect in its tracks. I just faced one like JUST NOW, and it gave me a hell of a time since I'm testing a RP Genesect/Landorus core, I couldn't set either up the whole match because I was afraid to give my opponent the boost. I had no idea how annoying ditto can actually be...